The next True Crime game is bound for PC and this time it knows Kung Fu. The reason for this is that it’s going to be set in Hong Kong, where apparently people are just as adept with their feet as with guns (see illustrative image). Once again it’s an open world tale of undercover police work and horrible gangsterism in the real world. 2010’s not a bad year for sandbox criminality then, even without a GTA game… “We tried to give the franchise a reboot and take a more mature slant,” producer Jeff O’Connell told peerless news-trumpeter, VG247. “In doing that, to get the background information we needed, one of the writers gained the trust of an ex-Triad to make the experience more authentic.” Hmm. For some reason the words “mature” and “immature” both now have the same meaning in my head. Anyway, first trailer below.

I think we need a campaign to reclaim the word “mature” before it solely means “With added blood, swearing and boobies”. My dream is that someday it will be used to indicate things like “We’ve learned that not all problems can be solved by punching someone in the face” or “A meaningful relationship is more rewarding than a string of one night stands” or even “You come to terms with the fact that you are not actually going to become the most famous and adored person in the world.”

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have games with blood, swearing and boobies in them but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that they’re more grown up, they’re more the gaming equivalent of a donner kebab or a Big Mac – not high class, probably bad for you but sometimes you just want one anyway.

“For some reason the words “mature” and “immature” both now have the same meaning in my head.”

You should know that this made me laugh more than is polite and decent for someone sitting on a crowded train. I was repayed with three odd stares, a solicitation and an atmosphere of intense collective embarressment (which, coincidently, is also the fourth ‘hidden’ mood which Kotick is attempting to bring to Game Development).

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In a more related comment: My one positive memory of this series was years ago when I playing the first game on a friend’s ex-Xbox. I was being chased by a SUV of angry gang-types down a highway and, realising I couldnt simply out drive them (partly due to the poor driving model, the fact that I was using the controller designed to be used by a race of huge-handed apes with poor design sense), I hammered the e-brake and bailed out- causing the other car to rocket past me- and then rolling to my poorly animated feet I took aim with my pistol and somehow managed to hit their exhaust or fuel tank, blowing them sky high. This was soured somewhat by a random traffic AI choosing to run into my back seconds later…

True, RDD is looking fine and we could certainly use more western-themed games. Seems like one of the least used themes in gaming, unfortunately, although there are some curios (see: Red Steel 2’s spaghetti western meets nanotech and ninjas).

The True Crime games had one thing going for them – those random optional cop missions. They made the sandboxiness bearable, given the ugly graphics and terrible controls. I’ve long thought that a good GTA expansion would center around the LCPD, and while there would be a storyline (perhaps with branching good cop/bad cop paths) there would also be tons of random missions that actually made you feel like you were a peace officer in the most crimeridden city in America.

I suspect my rosy-glasses view of True Crime was in large part due to playing it during my console phase, which lasted until the PS2 was no longer a viable platform. As such, I expect the controls were probably better than the PC version, and crappy graphics were par for the course. :)

Still, between APB and True Crime, hopefully we’ll get a decent cop-game soonish. Now if only they would make SWAT 5 …

I adored the original True Crime game, in large part because it combined GTA-esque mayhem with having the law on your side (for some inexplicable reason). Just being able to turn on the siren and know it’s your siren, rather than a stolen cop car, was fun in itself. (Even if you were in fact “borrowing” some other cop’s car.)

But the real fun for me was trying to stop random street crime in a fully legal fashion without getting myself killed. It’s the same sort of thing that makes SWAT 4 fun — trying to adhere to some semblance of the rules (like not just shooting them on sight), but also trying to get the first shot (or at least the second or third, not the tenth) when suspects decide to pull a gun on you. Or at least getting to cover and having a protracted Hollywood gun fight.

Meanwhile, the “good cop” / “bad cop” points were unlike most games’ morality scales in that there were actually clearly defined rules (so they didn’t have to resort to BioWare-style “give away all your money” / “eat puppies for breakfast” decisions), and it really is easier to slip into “bad cop” mode if you don’t actively try to be good (rather than requiring conscious effort to be a dick). And there weren’t really any benefits to being bad (IIRC), and the storyline would take negative paths if you weren’t good enough. As such, it was perhaps one of the best video game representations of the moral struggle between doing things the easy way and the morally correct way. (Far better than BioShock 2, say.)